


Stuck In a Hotel Room—The Driving Back to Boston Job

by crayonbreakygal



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:05:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6349279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Lying, greedy bitch.  He actually called her a lying, greedy bitch.” Takes place right after The Underground Job—season three.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stuck In a Hotel Room—The Driving Back to Boston Job

Takes place right after The Underground Job—season three

Stuck In a Hotel Room—The Driving Back to Boston Job

“Lying, greedy bitch. He actually called her a lying, greedy bitch.”

Hardison was laughing on their way home from West Virginia. Eliot and Hardison were riding in the van’s front, with Parker in the back, fast asleep. Hardison said something about Parker taking souls or something.

Sophie laughed at that comment, knowing how much a con could take out of the person doing it, especially since it was Parker. Parker worked hard on that con. She was proud of the thief. Of course, her not realizing that the marks were “knocking boots” as Hardison said made her understand that sometimes Parker didn’t get it.

She and Nate were riding back together. The van would have been uncomfortable to say the least. And they were out of air freshener. She really had to get Hardison to clean the van once again.

Sophie slipped her comm off while watching the scenery fly by. It was beautiful wherever they were driving. She’d lost track and wasn’t paying attention.

“Lying, greedy bitch. Kind of harsh if you ask me.”

“Your character, Sophie. Not you. Well, not the greedy part.”

“I certainly do lie on occasion. How am I a bitch?”

Nate thought back to the time when Sophie shot him.

“I have the hole in my shoulder to prove it.”

“I just winged you. Never let me live that one down, now will you?”

Nate adjusted himself in the seat, feeling the sting of being flung around down in the mine. Sophie could tell he was hurting. He just didn’t want her to know that.

“How is the shoulder, by the way?”

“The one you shot?”

“No, the one you’ve been moving around and grimacing about. Is that the same one?”

Nate grinned at her statement. “The same one.”

“You shouldn’t surprise someone when they’re working.”

“You were stealing.”

“I was working. Not like I didn’t pay for that one. I lost the art and was shot for my trouble.”

Nate sighed at her confession, but it wasn’t like he didn’t know what happened. He was there to help patch her up and she the same.

“Did you take your comm out?” Sophie asked.

“Of course. Eliot would have made us stop if he heard my shoulder was still hurting.”

“Always the nursemaid.”

The rain that was light when they started back turned torrential, making it harder and harder to see where they were going.

“Let’s just pull off and get something to eat.”

“You have soot and dirt all over. I bet if you stand out in the rain for a few minutes, it would all come off.”

Nate’s eyes opened wide. “You are so damn cheeky at times.”

“I aim to please.”

Nate picked a small diner along the way. It wasn’t overly crowded, but smelled good, so hopefully it was a good choice, Sophie thought as they both slid into a booth near the back. The waitress handed them menus.

“Coffee,” Nate asked.

“Two,” Sophie added as the waitress went to get them their drinks.

“Coffee?”

“I need the caffeine. Plus, there’s no telling how they’d brew the tea. It would be rubbish. Coffee is what I need.”

Luckily Nate didn’t look too worse for the wear at the moment, so the waitress didn’t make any comments as they ordered their meal.

“You’ve never called me a bitch before, Nate.”

“Not like I didn’t think it when you were leading me on a merry chase through Europe.”

“Oh come on, you liked it. I kept you on your toes.”

Taking a sip of his hot coffee, Nate glared at her.

The food was ready for them in short order. Both sat quietly as they ate their meal. Glancing outside, Sophie noticed that the rain had continued, looking worse from her vantage point.

“How are you feeling?” she asked her partner in crime.

“Still hurting,” he responded as he pulled out a bottle with medicine in it.

“I don’t think Tylenol is going to take care of that.”

“Hoping that it’ll at least take the edge off.”

“Why don’t we just get a room and ride out the storm. I don’t want you driving in that torrential downpour.”

“We’ll be fine.”

 

“We won’t be fine,” Sophie said as they realized not much later that the road out of the town they stopped in was flooded.

“Maybe we can go around.”

Thunder and lightning flashed in the distance. Nate called the rest of the crew. They had made better time but were stuck too, just further up the road.

“Hardison and his shortcuts. We should have stayed on the interstate.”

“Which is now closed too. Flooded.”

Sophie showed him her phone readout.

“Ok, let’s go back and hope they have some rooms.”

 

“One room?” Sophie said as they got back into the car.

“One room. Hey we’re lucky they had any rooms.”

Sophie groaned in frustration. Her clothes were ruined from getting in and out of the car in the rain. Her hair was a complete disaster. And she had to share a room with the one man she did not want to share with.

Flinging the door open, Nate quickly entered, followed by a drenched Sophie. Her small bag was only wet on the top, but her shoes didn’t look like they survived.

“Oh, my shoes.”

“Buy another pair,” Nate said as he took off his wet coat and placed it on the back of the door to dry. “And your dress.”

The dress was ruined too. The silk could not withstand the rain.

“I should have changed before we left.”

Without a word, Nate grabbed his bag and headed to the bathroom to clean off all the dirt that had accumulated from being thrown around in an explosion.

“Don’t use all the hot water.”

Sophie quickly stripped off her dress and found her pajamas, hoping that Nate was quick to shower and change. Twenty minutes later, he opened the door, letting steam out. Sophie watched as he rubbed the water out of his curly hair, making a mess of it. As she passed him by, she noticed how good he smelled.

He hadn’t left her all that much hot water, but she managed to get a quick one in before it started turning cold. The bathroom was tiny, fogged up even though the ancient fan was on full blast. Wiping the mirror, she set about taking off her makeup and washing her face for the night.

It was then she realized that Nate was a slob. He’d made a mess in the bathroom with other towels, shampoo bottle upended, soap on the floor. That was something she never knew about him. In other parts of his life, he seemed to be tidy and organized. Here, not so much. Cleaning up the room, she dressed quickly before the heat from the room dissipated. It was starting to get quite chilly.

“Nate, where’s the heat?” she stopped when she noticed he was lying on the bed in pain. “What’s wrong?”

“I accidentally pulled my shoulder. Dammit.”

“Here. Let me see.”

She lifted his shirt up and out of the way. It wasn’t just the shoulder. He had some abrasions from the blast also that he told no one about. A large bruise had started to form on his back too.

“The muscle kinked up as I was trying to stretch it.”

“Lie down,” she told him.

The look of confusion crossed his face with that request.

“Take the shirt off and lie down. I’ll try and work the kink out. It’s probably what’s causing the pain.”

Nate did as he was asked, although she could tell he was maybe a bit uncomfortable with her touching him. Who cares, she thought.

Lying on his stomach, Sophie straddled his back to get the best pressure on it.

Crying out in pain, Nate tensed up even more. “Dammit, Sophie.”

“Just lie still. I can feel where the knot is. I know what I’m doing.”

“Worked in a massage parlor in another life?” he joked.

That earned him a slap on the arm.

“It’s not like I can go to the doctor when I’m banged up from a con.”

Groaning into his pillow, Sophie finally was able to relieve the pressure in his back. She could tell when she did it because he finally relaxed. While she was doing that, she traced the scars on his back, and found the one she had created so long ago.

“Much better,” he managed to get out.

“No more getting yourself blown up, on purpose. If Eliot had timed that wrong, you’d still be buried in that mountain.”

“It worked.” Nate shifted a little, but Sophie still had not moved from her position. “Uh, Sophie, you done?”

“Uh, yeah. OK?”

“Yeah.”

The room was getting a bit warmer and it wasn’t because the heat had finally come on to help. Slowly she swung her leg over his body to sit on the edge of the bed.

“I saw the scar from the bullet wound that I gave you.”

“And there’s the one that the judge gave me. Wanna see the one that Kadjic gave me? It’s a little bigger. Swimsuit season will never be the same.”

“Nate, how can you joke about being shot?”

“Eliot says I’m a magnet for being shot.”

“Oh Nate. What if that guy had a gun?”

“He didn’t.”

He joined her on the end of the bed.   Sophie had realized there was only one bed too. The room seemed entirely too small and intimate at the moment for her. The walls were closing in and she didn’t know how to stop it from happening.

“You just need to stop putting yourself in danger so much.”

Sophie tried to stop the tears from flowing, but it was a lost cause.

“Hey, hey. Come on.” Nate pulled her into his arms to comfort her.

Sighing as he was holding her, it made her feel much better that he was there for her when she needed it. He hadn’t been in the past. Maybe he was learning what she needed before she even knew it herself?

“Blast it, you hairy beast, I’ve cried all over you,” Sophie told him, attempting to lighten the mood.

“What did you call me?”

“Well, you deserve it after calling me a bitch.”

His evil grin said it all. He was going to get revenge on her.

“Don’t you dare, Nate.”

He poked, she tickled until they were rolling around on the bed. The shoulder seemed to be forgotten, as were the scraps from the blast. He gained the upper hand, but Sophie managed to flip him over and pinning him to the bed.

“You let me win,” she declared as he grinned up at her.

“Pretty much.”

Her damp hair brushed up against him as she placed a light kiss on the scar from a gunshot on his shoulder.

“Sophie,” he whispered as she placed another kiss on what looked like a scar from a knife a little further down.

“Knife fight, when I was sixteen.”

On the other side, nearest a rib, she placed another gentle kiss on one of the scrapes he managed to get earlier that day. Making her way down to his stomach, she found the scar from the Maltese Falcon job.

“You were so lucky that this one didn’t kill you.”

“Lucky that it missed anything vital.”

Sophie looked up and to his eyes. Moving back up, she kissed his elbow, his neck and his forehead before finally looking at what she had wanted to kiss in the first place.

“At least I didn’t get punched in the face this time.”

As gently as she could, she slowly kissed him. It was so different from the first and second time she had done it. The first time was all guilt and secrecy. The second time was desperation. This time was pure bliss.

Lightning crashed outside, startling her a bit from what she wanted. Then the lights went out.

“Ouch,” Nate said as she moved.

“Watch those hands,” Sophie giggled out.

“What hands? I can’t see a thing,” he said, laughing as he did.

Sophie managed to find his mouth again in the dark, showing him how much she wanted him.

 

“You should have seen all that water. Lucille almost didn’t make it.”

Two days later, the team was back in action with another case.

“That’s why I told you to pull over. Nate and Sophie were smart and did.”

“The thunder and lightning were nice.”

“Nice? Do you realize what all that could have done to my baby?”

Parker, Eliot and Hardison bickered back and forth while Nate and Sophie sat at opposite ends of the table, making eye contact.

“It was fine. We managed, OK?” Eliot pointed out. “How’s the shoulder, Nate?”

Nate gave him a confused look. “Shoulder?”

“Yeah, you were favoring it when we left. Want me to take a look?”

“Nah. It’s fine.”

Parker stood next to him, looking over his neck. “That cave-in was pretty crazy. Those scraps must have hurt. Your neck is a little beat up.”

Sophie started to shake her head at him to leave as quickly as possible.

“Those look like teeth marks.”

“Parker,” Sophie warned the younger woman.

Nate took his hand and covered what he hadn’t noticed in the mirror.

“Teeth marks? How do you get teeth marks from an explosion?” Hardison added to Parker’s comment.

“You don’t,” Eliot said, slowly turning toward Sophie.

“Gotta go. Hair appointment,” she said as she started to pick up her purse.

“Yeah, and, um, I have to do all that paperwork,” Nate said as he tried to get up.

“I’m leaving now.”

“Should have worn a turtleneck, Nate,” Eliot pointed out.

“It’s kinda warm in here. Why would he…” Hardison’s eyes lit up with recognition. “You, you guys. Just. Just because it rained and you got stuck.”

“We all were stuck,” Parker added.

“In a hotel room. Alone. With nothing to do.”

“Hey, we were stuck in a hotel room, with nothing to do,” Parker told the others.

“But we didn’t do anything that we might later regret,” Hardison said as he looked at the guilty parties.

“Speak for yourself,” Eliot said as he winked at Parker.

“Wait? What? What are y’all not telling me?”

Sophie managed to escape and Nate ran for the stairs.


End file.
